Don't Open Till Doomsday

Some reviewers dislike this episode, but I found it truly creepy when I first saw it. Watching it now (this very day), I still like it. The ever-waiting bride is marvelously acted in her frozen 1929 world.

Sure, the underlying plot seems implausible, but that's what the series was all about. This story is more fast-paced than other talky episodes (like O.B.I.T.). But that's what television was like in the 1960s. I originally thought the show was made for Europe because it was unlike anything I have seen before or since. That's what made the series so interesting.

Don't look inside the box is the watchword for this episode of The Outer Limits.

Gard Hayden (Buck Taylor) has eloped with Vivia (Melinda Plowman) who have been married by the Justice of the Peace, the kind who does not ask a lot of questions. Both look very young. They are pursued by Vivia's dad, a hotshot lawyer.

With not much money, they are advised to stay at the bridal suite of Mrs Kry (Miriam Hopkins) a cross between Miss Havisham and Norma Desmond. It is a dilapidated house and the bridal suite contains a small box with a one eyed alien inside it.

The house is eerie and before long, Gard thunks that Vivia has run out on her. She has disappeared when she has in fact beamed inside the box. The alien is looking for someone to help him recreate a frequency but it is one which will destroy the world.

It is not long before Vivia's father comes looking for her and he makes a deal with the alien.

The story has a grotesque over the top performance from Miriam Hopkins, as the disturbed OTT Mrs Kry. The episode is certainly weird and creepy but does take time to get going.

If you put aside the strangeness of this episode, the depressing aspects of a marriage under fearful consequences, you must the proceed to the box. Why is it there? I guess it's an integral part of a kind of doomsday thing that the creature in it is trying to bring about. He is a key component, I guess. Beyond that, we have a wacko set of events, beginning with a man, who, on his wedding night, looks in the box and is trapped inside of it with a lump of raw hamburger with a single eye. Now we proceed to another wedding. A couple of underage people are married by a spooky justice of-the-peace and his wheel- chair ridden wife. They are then referred for their wedding night to the house of Mrs. Kry where they are given a rented room. The room contains the wedding gifts from the former night. The old lady was the bride from that night and has been doing the Miss Havisham thing ever since. Things unfurl as the brides father, a rich man who get his way, hunt down the young couple who had run off against his wishes. It's one really odd episode that seems to lack enough information to make it work toward a reasonable conclusion.

On his wedding night, Harvey Kry foolishly opens a gift marked 'do not open til Doomsday,' upon doing so he disappears, leaving behind his bride Mary, stuck as though it were forever 1929.

I watched it twice, as the first time I didn't fully engage with it, once I'd learned what to expect, I had a better understanding. It's definitely one of the stranger, more bizarre episodes, but it is loaded with atmosphere, it's definitely pretty creepy, but its best feature, it's so original.

The monster itself, odd, interesting, but it's guilty of being a BEM, a bug eyed monster, the show has resisted for the most part in providing those, I didn't care for it.

Miriam Hopkins delivers a knockout performance, I've read several comments of her reminding people of various characters, but for me it's Gloria Swanson of Sunset Boulevard, an almost grotesque, theatrical existence. The performance of Hopkins is genuinely terrific, one of the best I've seen on the show.

It's creepy, it's curious, I get why there is a lot of love for it.

7/10.

At times silly, illogical, and over-the-top, none-the-less, this is a memorable episode for "Outer Limits" and Sci-Fi aficionados. The plot centers around the contents of the "Don't open till Doomsday" package that arrives as a wedding gift. The diabolical alien within resembles a chunk of misshapen, raw liver with a single eye who observes the "world" through a small porthole in its box (akin to a camera obscura device) through which it beckons humans. All of the actors give credible performances, but the "star" is obviously a spirited Mariam Hopkins who plays to the hilt the crazed Mary Kry in a performance that is often reminiscent of Bette Davis's turn as Baby Jane Hudson in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane". Running the emotional gamut of a character who is angry, desperate, cunning, pathetic, and downright evil, Hopkin's plight is accentuated by effective, mood-appropriate studio lighting that takes full advantage of the black and white film stock.